Flash to revolutionize the web.. again

MR.B · 21 Mar 2011 at 18:29

Thought i'd bring this up... Flash Player 11 will be out soon-ish, it has some new API's called Molehill, which besically lets Flash fully use the GPU to accelerated anything, 3D or 2D. Now you'll be seeing up to console-level 3D graphics in Flash. There will finally be advanced full 3D games on the net, for free, that you can play in any browser and on any OS/Device with Flash support (like Android phones). Flash can also create apps so downloadable games could be made that dont even need a browser.

So heres some demo's... first of all you need Flash Incubator which is a early preview of Flash Player 11.

Demo's:

Max Racer (a bit like PGR on the 360)
Realistic head
Water manipulation
Zombie Tycoon (seems to be a finished game)
Ducks
Metallic head
Doom 3 flying head

2D and perfromance examples:

2D perfomance with Molehill (hardware acceleration) and without
More Molehile speed examples and article

And yeah i know theres WebGL, part of the HTML5 spec - but browser support is limited, performance varies in each browser, the standard still isn't complete even though people have been talking about it for 6+ years, and the dev tools are almost non-existant and poor. Put it this way, Flash Player 11 preview has been out around a month and already theres way more 3D content appearing with it. It will do for 3D content and games what it did for video a few years back. When you make something in Flash it instantly looks and works exactly the same in all browsers, all major OS's, and any device with Flash support. Or it can be turned into a standalone app for desktop of phone with a few mouse clicks.

Thoughts?

MR.B · 21 Mar 2011 at 18:40

tntcoder said:
I wonder if it will work with Linux.

Adobe really need to do more work on cross platform support, standards and openness

For openness ... all the Flash .SWF format, Flash compiler and all Flash related stuff specifications are published, open-source and free!

Only the Flash Professionnal software, which is part of the Creative Suite, is proprietary.

As for cross platform support, nothing else rivals Flash for this... yeah Linux is a bit hit and miss, but it's the same reason why browser hardware acceleration on Linux is hit and miss... the drivers and code are a mess on that system, things are missing, broke, or just dont work well.

MR.B · 21 Mar 2011 at 18:44

Dj_Jestar said:
The sooner flash dies the better

Why?

without Flash, Youtube, games, interaction, and animations would not exist. We would still be stuck in the 90's with static HTML pages and needing loads of codecs and video players for each sites different video implementation. HTML5 can finally do some of these things, but not half as many and it often uses more CPU to do it.

MR.B · 21 Mar 2011 at 18:52

Dj_Jestar said:
In steps HTML5 and WebGL. Tra flash.

Which as i've explaied are inferior in every way. I dont want to make content and games that may or not work in whatever browser, or perform or look differently depending on browser speed or how the browser handles the standard. Each browser can still render a basic web page diffently, imagine how it fares with complex games?

You make something once in Flash and you have instant cross browser/cross platform support.
Flash 3D content is already overtaking WebGL and FP11 preview has only been out a month. So obviously other devs see this logic.

MR.B · 21 Mar 2011 at 19:08

How is Flash inefficient? Look at HTML5 demo's of it doing the same things as Flash and watch as it uses more CPU

The only reason HTML5 and WebGL have been slow to pickup

...and the fact that the standard still is not complete, and wont be for some time. Even though it's been in developement for 10+ years.
You will NEVER get things in HTML5 like games or advanced content that can rival Flash. In a years time i would actually bet a ton of money that Flash 3D games/content out number WebGL games by something like 100 to 1. Because of the reasons i've mentioned before. Theres just too many variables with browsers and even if all browser fully support HTML5 100% you will still have issues of different performance in each, and each rendering things differently.

MR.B · 21 Mar 2011 at 19:18

I can get the exact same kind of results for any browser - performance issues, bugs, security issues, and anything else. The Flash Player deals with more complex things, like video and animation so it's more prone to have issues on certain hardware.
With HTML5 browsers are having more and more of these problems

MR.B · 22 Mar 2011 at 02:52

HTML5 is not a replacement to Flash, and is not intended as such... I dont know why some people think HTML5 could ever possibly replace Flash though. I guess it's lack of knowledge about the platform. Flash will always be better suited to certain tasks and the many things that HTML5 still cant do. Theres just so many things in my line of work that are better suited to Flash, or it's simply not possible to do with HTML5.
For features it will also always remain ahead of HTML5 as it gets yearly updates. Since version 10 it's had many new features. The gap between HTML4 to HTML5 was over 10 years. Molehill demonstrated here took around 2 years to create, in contrast HTML5 is still not complete because of all the parties and the long process involved. 2012 is when HTML5 may get Candidate Recommendation and 2022 is the estimated date for full interpretation of the HTML5 spec.
IE9 can now handle a lot of the HTML5 spec, and most browsers support HTML5 pretty well now but how many sites are using HTML5 for interaction, animation, games or video? The answer is pretty much none of them. Flash adoption has not dropped in the slightest, even youtube will always use Flash for videos as it's main choice because it has superior streaming options, more versatility/capability, and better DRM support for the film studios, all of which unlike the HTML5 spec will be improved upon each year.

MR.B · 22 Mar 2011 at 10:29

Tripnologist said:
Which shouldn't be surprising considering IE9 was only released a couple days ago. On top of that, current stats for the month have IE usage at around 45%, without including IE9. I don't know anyone who would intentionally cut out that large of a percentage of their market.

Look at it this way... Something like Silverlight has roughly 50% install base on computers, so making content for that is cutting out half of all net users. Yet you still get way more people choosing to develop with Silverlight for interactive sites and games. Even when HTML5 has 80% or more user base i cant see it even competing with Silverlight for this stuff, let alone Flash. The plugins hold so many advanatages. And if anyone on here was to actually develope for these plugins thereself they would understand what i mean. Rather than spouting the mindless "it's not open source HTML5 is the future" rubbish.
Theres the ideal world and then theres reality.

MR.B · 13 Apr 2011 at 10:18

I know this thread has been quiet for a while but i went on holiday

Tilluss said:
The OP was how number 11 is bringing 3d gaming stuff to the net and that it's gonna be revolutionary, the thing is 3d gaming platforms are already available and have been for quite some time so the 'revolution', if there was gonna be one, has already started way before flash 11 (check out unity: http://unity3d.com/gallery/live-demos/index.html#bedroom).

I'm aware of Unity. But the Unity web player has almost no market share. Probably less than 5%. Flash has over 97%. So this is what i meant when i said it will actually revolutionise 3D on the net. Now anyone can view it so it will take off in a big way like video did with Flash.
Unity also annouced that they are supporting Flash 11 soon. So now once you make something with Unity it will work on Android, iOS, 360, PS3 and now Flash.

Even browser developers understand the need for Flash. This is from a Goggle Chrome dev:

It's pretty clear that HTML + JS (+ CSS, + WebGL, +++etc.) is not a replacement for Flash at the moment, due to capabilities, development tool quality, browser distribution, etc.
Frequently the two are not trying to solve the same problems. I think people who play up the "OMG HTML5 is teh Flash killz0r" angle are naive or ignorant.

And he's right. The "OMG HTML5 is teh Flash killz0r" people are the ones who know nothing of what they're talking about, or just iSheep. Apple does not support Flash because Jobs has money invested in competing technology and the H.264 proprietary codec used for HTML5 video. It will also threaten there App Store game sales. Just another measure of control for Apple so Jobs can make even more money off the stupid. And has anyone tried running HTML5 demo animations on Apples own site on a iPad or iPhone? Single digit frames per second + 100% CPU load. If thats not a battery drain i dont know what is.

MR.B · 13 Apr 2011 at 10:47

The most searched for term on Google for iPhone users is also "Flash Player"

BTW funny you mention fit girls because i've actually made a realistic 3D girl with 3DS Max + Unity as a demo of my 3D modelling work... so once Unity support Flash 11 soon i'll be putting that on the net.